Gender Differences in the prevalence, manifestation, and coping mechanism of social anxiety among male and female University Students in the United Kingdom

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a widespread but poorly understood mental health disorder among university students, who are in a period of complicated social, academic, and developmental adjustments. Even though current literature provides that social anxiety is more common among females, minimal focus has been directed towards the effect of gendered social norms on social anxiety expression and reporting. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of existing literature regarding gender variation in prevalence, manifestation and coping mechanisms of social anxiety in university students in the United Kingdom. The PRISMA 2020 guidelines were followed in the systematic review. Peer-reviewed articles published in 2015- 2025 were searched in 4 academic databases (CINAHL, APA PsycInfo, PubMed, and MEDLINE Ovid). Following the screening of 876 articles and stringent inclusion and exclusion criteria, 9 high-quality articles were incorporated in the final synthesis. Results showed that female students were always found to have higher scores pertaining to social anxiety but this was attributed to high levels of emotional expressiveness, academic self-comparison and cultural pressures with respect to appearance. Conversely, male students tended to internalise the symptoms and not seek help because of the masculine norms that equate emotional vulnerability to weakness. Expressive and relational coping strategies that are gendered manifested in females, and avoidant and suppressive in males featured prominently in studies. The conclusion of this review is that gender is an important factor that affects the experience and management of social anxiety. It suggests gender-sensitive university policies, peer-support model, and academic staff training to enhance the early detection and provision of support to the affected students.